Course Catalogue

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This course provides students with the opportunity either to become actively involved in public engagement and outreach activities or to work as a teaching assistant in a secondary school. The first half of the course involves training, planning and preparation for the outreach or teaching activities in the second semester. The second half of the course involves the delivery of the chosen activity. For outreach/public engagement the students will participate in appropriate events that promote STEM in general terms and engineering specifically. For teaching each student will deliver to a class of secondary school pupils a 'special project' that involves a series of lessons investigating a specific area of engineering relevant to the school curriculum.

In the first semester, each student enrolled on the course will spend one hour per week undergoing appropriate skills training and planning for teaching, outreach and/or other forms of public engagement.

In the second semester, each student will typically spend one afternoon per week engaged in outreach activities at scheduled events or in the school with which he/she is paired.

Mandatory Entry Requirements

None

Recommended Entry Requirements

Previous teaching or outreach experience

None

None

Assessment of student's outreach campaign planning document or teaching lesson plan (20%); 

Assessment of student's journal, recording progress and development of outreach/classroom work (10%); 

Assessment of oral presentation given by student upon completion of the course (20%)

Assessment by school teacher/outreach coordinator of the student's planning and delivery of material (10%)

Assessment of end of course written report by student including a critical analysis of the perception of the audience and evaluation of the success of the outreach/classroom activities (40%)

The aims of this course are:

■ to provide Engineering students with the opportunity to gain experience in teaching, outreach and other forms of public engagement in secondary schools and the wider community; 

■ to encourage students to consider teaching and public engagement as possible career choices, whilst equipping students with valuable transferable skills associated with communication and knowledge transfer; 

■ to provide knowledgeable and enthusiastic engineering students who are able to offer practical teaching assistance, outreach promotion and public engagement with their target audience; 

■ to provide UofG with the opportunity to build stronger links with schools and public organisations, thus potentially boosting long-term recruitment into STEM subjects.

By the end of this course students will be able to:

■ Describe their chosen special project topic or promotional material at a level appropriate for a secondary school student and an intelligent layperson

■ Display interpersonal and team-working skills when dealing with colleagues

■ Demonstrate an ability to improvise and adapt so as to deal with unexpected, difficult and potentially disruptive situations

■ Demonstrate organisational, prioritising and negotiating skills

■ Demonstrate public speaking and communication skills

■ Demonstrate knowledge of techniques for teaching and promoting

■ Prepare outreach planning documents or lesson plans, and teaching or promotional materials